“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

There is little point reprinting the article, as he simply rehashes his old argument that we can replace Hinkley with offshore wind:

Offshore wind contracts in Holland and Denmark are already coming in far below the Hinkley strike price of £92.50 per megawatt hour, even allowing for hidden subsidies. The same companies say they can match this relatively quickly in Britain.

The industry has vowed to reach a target of £69 per MWh by 2025, driven by economies of scale.

For a proper comparison, at the most recent auction last year offshore wind contracts were awarded at £119.89/MWh at 2012 prices, or £126.85 at current prices.

It is true that George Osborne set a cap at £105/MWh (again at 2012 prices) for the next CfD round, in his last budget. This will fall to £85/MWh for projects commissioned by 2026. But there is no guarantee that this will end up attracting any bidders, or that future chancellors won’t simply raise the price.

Hoping that something comes along in ten years time is no way to run the country’s energy policy.

2) He ignores the fact that trying to compare nuclear with wind power is comparing chalk and cheese. Nuclear provides reliable, dispatchable baseload. Wind does not.

He whittles on about battery storage, which does not exist in anything like the scale needed. Even if it did, it would add colossally to the cost of wind power.

He shows how poorly he understands energy markets when he says:

Britain will always need reliable ‘base-load’ power to supplement renewables but big nuclear reactors are a poor way to do this. They cannot easily be switched on an off.

The whole point about baseload is that it does not have to constantly switched on and off, a reason why the existing nuclear plants we have are so successful at providing that very same baseload.

3) To replace Hinkley’s output with offshore wind would require an extra 7.2 GW of offshore wind capacity, on top of the 5.1 GW we already have, and the extra 17.4 GW already planned or projected.

This is not small feed.

And, of course, we would still need an extra 3.2 GW of reliable backup capacity, such as CCGT, to cover for wind’s intermittency, a fact that even Richard Black, who is paid to shill for renewable interests, admits.

Although, as Paul points out, the point of baseload power stations is that you don’t switch them on and off, nuclear power stations are in fact easy to switch on and off. At the end of each fuel cycle they are powered down and after refuelling they are powered back up – it is a standard routine.

There is something else way beyond AEP’s ability to comprehend – frequency control. The base load of proper generating plant controls the grid frequency. Windmills don’t run at a constant speed like a generator does so produce variable frequency. Without the base load the frequency would be all over the place.

Hinckley is one of the worst ideas, along with Swansea Bay and Severn estuary tidal schemes and a fast rail line to Birmingham ever conceived.

What would be wrong with guaranteeing base load by removing the restrictions on Drax and building another one at Immingham. OK it aint green but so what The power produced would be at less than half the cost of that at Hinkley. Put our ‘freezing to death in winter pensioners ‘ above any green considerations, say I. The extra CO2 etc would be miniscule compared to the huge amount being spewed out by China, India, the rest of Europe and America.

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